'sup

I found 'sup magazine... well actually viva-radio showed it to me. But I looked up their website, and you can basically read all the articles there. I love the Internet for that.
The new york times is all on the Internet.
The Vancouver sun is all on the Internet.
etc.

So 'sup magazine is pretty rad..I thoroughly enjoyed reading it http://www.supmag.com/

In general I'm very happy with my life. nothing to complain about. I love the idea of getting out more, seeing the city more, doing more art, reading more, becoming more knowledgeable and all that jazz.

I keep thinking two years three years down the road, which is my biggest downfall. I always want whats coming, and never what I have right now. So I have to work on loving what I have...RIGHT NOW!

which is life.

these are the days.

The sound of the dishwasher running
and rinsing.
The carpet against my socks.
The sound of my squeaky hiccup.
I'm home at midnight.
There's still 16 and a half books to read sitting
on my dresser
and on my floor.

Vancouver Half-life

GLORY DAYS
Hey.
So lately I've been feeling that city itch again.... Not for the same reasons this time. Just for the inspiration that the city brings into art and so forth.

I think though that this time will be better. I won't leave Mission for another two years or so. I'll work on my book, teach piano students etc. Tal will go to UFV for a couple years.

Then we're thinking...(obviously this is all in the future and there's a lot of ifs)that Tal could finish his degree closer to the city! That's when we'd....move I suppose.

By then we'll be at a better age and we'll hopefully have a little more money..and street smarts.

In the mean time however.
My aunt has opened up a shop (a consignment shop) at 16th and Cambie, and I'm going to be working there part time to help out with selling and styling and what not.

So this allows me to have my life in two cities. I'll get the small town security of Mission, and the big city art life of Vancouver. This thrills me. We'll see what happens next.

five books at a time.

From now on I will only allow myself to get five books out of the library at a time. It starts to stress me out when I have 28 books out and they're due two weeks from now and I'm only done two of them.

I figure five is good because that gives me a couple extra in case the first couple of books don't hold my attention.

Right now I'm studying early music (Gregorian chants etc.) ... It's all part of getting my ARCT... and it's been really interesting. I just started and we're just looking at the 400s and it's crazy...which inspired me to start reading more than just what's come out right now.

I really enjoyed literature in grade 12 but basically forgot a lot about what I learnt, because I did art through all those classes and didn't pay attention.

Soooo I found a list of books I am going to work through. I will make my pilgrimage down to the library with my gross amount of books to return and start fresh with this massive list.

Side note.
I listen to viva radio in case you haven't already heard, and I found this show on it called, "Believe it! Achieve it!" I'd already heard of it, but I had never listened to a whole show (they're only like 20 minutes long). It's this guy Troy who interviews congressmen in the USA. It's terribly funny in both senses of the word. One it's just so sarcastic you can taste it, and two, it's terrible that he actually organized interview with these men and then basically wasted their time...but it is incredibly amusing.

I realized that I hadn't written anything in my blog about going to PORTLAND and my 19th birthday so I thought I'd write in note form a little of whats been going on in the last five days or so.
- picked my mom up from work at five p.m last Friday and drove all the way down to Portland (five hours or so)
- toured around Portland...Loved it, except there's nowhere to eat because it's all bars....soooooooooooooooooo we found this Thai restaurant..and I'm not the biggest fan
- checked out lots of art galleries (bought cheap art that I am in love with check out emilyblackapple.net)




- went to Powell's books which is a used book store which is a whole city block wide...and deep (beautiful)



- went to MAC and found out that it's really cheap there
- loved that there was no tax on anything
- stayed at this crazy trendy hotel
- loved Portland

the next day was my nineteenth birthday...it was a family birthday in Langley. and i felt really honored...I'm planning something with my friends later (Cady's birthday is...today actually so we might do something together..?)

I can drink in public.

Then I came down with a cold/fever.

So that's just a little bit of explosive goo from my brain, to catch you up on things.

it feels luxurious.

Sometimes it depresses me to have a bubble bath at eleven am, and sometimes it feels so luxurious that I can't help but love it.

Sometimes cleaning the house feels like a huge daunting chore, and sometimes it feels like a dirt devil and a half an hour.

Sometimes 25 pages of music history homework seems like open books and frusteration, and sometimes it feels like adventure.

Sometimes practising piano seems like a 2 hour back ache, and sometimes it feels as beautiful as it looks when someone plays the harp.

Sometimes cleaning my closet feels like a huge cavern that has to be wiped out every square inch, and sometimes it feels like shopping.

Today I read more laws in Leviticus and Numbers, cleaned the house, had a bubble bath, invited Tal over for french toast, sausages and eggs, practised piano, worked on history, discovered lots of interesting facts, cleaned a room, made fajitas, and who knows what else will happen.

Viva brazil keeps me going through the day. It has to be the happiest music there is.

Today was one of those days where cleaning the house was quick, my bubble bath was luxurious, breakfast was scrumptious, practising was fun, history was an adventure, and cooking was beautiful.

ideas. projects. inpirations.

AHH.
I have so many ideas that I want to see come into affect.
I'll elaborate on two.

First and foremost.
I have this idea for a piano method book for beginners that I think is kinda fun. It is a method book and children's story book mixed together. So the characters venture into this music world, and meet a bunch of characters who in turn teach them early beginner music concepts through story. It's really interesting and fun coming up with ideas, conflicts, solutions, all the while trying to pack as much theory, and creative music concepts in a long the way. It's a huge project. Slightly overwhelming as I have no idea how to get from idea to manuscript to self publishing, to marketing etc.

Right now I figure getting it all outlined, seeing if I've added every concept I want to add in the first book, making revision after revision seems like enough. Once I've outlined the whole book that way, I'll look into how I want to illustrate it and publish it.

If I look at it all at once idea-manuscript-illustration-publication it's like Mt.Everest. I just have to think small little steps. So today I outlined the "pre-reading" section. What is going to happen concept wise...as well as story wise. It's really fun when I look at it in small sections. Then I can accomplish small things.

I even wrote out a syllabus out for myself ex. what I have to finish by December 10th, broken down into three sections (now till December 10) and the sections broke down into weeks, so I can keep on track.

It's hard working from home and not getting lazy. I don't want all my ideas to go to waste, I have to do something or they will just sit there.



Anyways, that's idea number one.

Number two is more of a hobby.
I want to start my own podcast. It's sort of frustrating when you have no idea how to do that technically. I want to podcast interesting music in play lists that have different emotions and genres. I want them to be around an hour in length, and put out a new one once a week. I want to put it on to itunes.

I've been reading tons of blogs on how to upload your podcast onto blogs and itunes and such, and now it actually comes down to creating one, editing it and clicking upload. So we'll see where this goes.

ONE more idea for good measure.
Photography. I want to photograph Mission B.C in it's best light and create a series. I left Mission a couple of months ago thinking it was the worst place to live in the world for an artist, and now I'm back and I love it. It's a perfect place for an artist. So now I want the series to be a sort of, "I'm sorry," to Mission and let it know that I still like him/her and that I recognize it's beauty.

identity and identity

There's the identity I've created, and the identity the creator created.
I love the identity the creator created, but am often stuck in the identity I've created.

Truth is there's a part of me that is proud of the identity I've created. Which is wrong, but hard to let go of.

Part of me loves the identity the creator created, and the other part still wants the old identity.



In a book I was reading the author said that a lot of people in full time kingdom work will try to always pick the more selfless road, because even if the selfish road was a more intelligent decision, it will undoubtedly lead to destruction.

My created identity, is most definitely the more selfish road. If I am walking a path to become more selfless, why would I be debating over which identity I should give my face to today?

Sometimes this walk gets complicated, and I get weak, but I know that He is the redeemer of my soul, and that without Him I would be wandering around aimlessly in my created self, trying to fill my life with whatever pleased me, and in the end find nothing but a bottomless pit of want.

The hard part is in our society, when finding, "your true self," is such an important part of mental development. I guess that the identity that God has given me is in fact, "my true self," but I've covered it up with so many masks that I like and have created to make some sort of mosaic identity on top.

If finding your true self in society is finding where you fit and where you belong, it makes more sense to take off all of the masks that we wear to find the true center, the core of an identity, then once we've achieved that to put on the masks of things that fit that core person. Yet, it seems that society does it backwards, to find ourselves we pile on a whole bunch of things (hobbies, clubs, etc.) to find out where we fit, and once we do we devote ourselves to it.

Boggling.

Help me to live in the identity You've created. Amen.

Viva Radio

Viva Radio is the absolute best internet radio show you will ever find. The most eccentric. The best. The best. The BEST.

sow. invest. obsess. etc.

The pastor today at my church talked about how in the Bible so often you hear the words "sow," and, "harvest," and the truth is most of us aren't farmers, and to relate better to these analogies the words, "invest," and, "results," might be easier to relate to.

That's not what I'm writing about though.

I need 20-25 students (piano students) to be financially stable. I have 9. It's easy for me to get really anxious and to start obsessing over my finances, over what I can do to rake in money, etc.

Soon, my whole brain is CONSUMED with the deception that the MOST IMPORTANT thing is MONEY!

He keeps asking me (God) what's more important, HIM or money, and I know it's him, and I've tried surrendering all this...BUT IT'S SO HARD in our culture, when we're raised thinking the most important thing is to be financially stable. We're even encouraged to pursue stable jobs and put aside our dreams so that we can be financially stable. To afford a huge house, to buy a nice car, to put our kids through college so they can do the same thing.

"It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own wall all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.

This isn't the first time we've been warned. If we use our freedom this way, we won't inherit God's kingdom.

But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard - things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

Legalism is helpless in bring this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good - crucified.

Since this is the kid of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare for ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us in an original."

Galatians 5:19-26

All in favor say, AYE!

god bless my little cluttered head.

One day a religious expert on Moses' law came to test Jesus' orthodoxy by asking him this question: "Teacher, what does a man need to do to live forever in heaven?"
Jesus replied, "What does Moses' law say about it?"
"It says," he replied, "that you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, strength, and with all your mind. And you must love you neighbor just as much as you love yourself."
"Right!" Jesus told him. "Do this and you shall live!"
The man wanted to justify (his lack of love for some kind of people), so he asked, "which neighbors?"
Jesus replied with an illustration: "A Jew going on a trip from Jerusalem to Jericho was attached by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes and money and beat him up and left him lying half dead beside the road.
"By chance a Jewish priest came along; and when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A Jewish Temple-assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but then went on.
"But a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw him, he felt deep pity. Kneeling beside him the Samartian soothed his wounds with medicine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his donkey and walked along beside him till they came to an inn, where he nursed him through the night. The next day he handed the innkeeper two twenty dollar bills and told him to take care of the man. "If his bill runs higher than that," he said," I'll pay the difference the next time I am here."
"Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the bandits' victim?"
The man replied, "The one who showed him some pity."
Then Jesus said, "Yes now go and do the same."

This story is really common, almost everyone's heard it. But what if we took this a step further and actually applied it to our lives.

I like to think that I'm pretty accepting, but often there are things revealed to me where I'm not. Where I'm more judgemental than loving, more hard hearted than I would like to have been.

Each human is a human. There's no human that is better than the other. The world blinds us into thinking that some are different, a cut above, but we're all the same. All of us have our so called, "unique," interests and hobbies, and we have our circle of people that are easy to love and our circle of people that are hard to love.

Everyone has that one person that annoys them. The Jew and the Samaritan in the story were enemies. What if we showed compassion and love not only to the people that were in our circle of acceptance, but to everyone else as well.

The world has it's way of thinking we'll find peace, but it won't happen until every person loves EVERY other person, not just he people that are easy to love.
Jesus says that everyone can love the people that they love. It's easy to love people that are your friends, what about everyone else?

slick rick the ruler

i can't help it.
i love him.
i've been getting more and more into oldschool stuff. and my boyfriends boss at American Apparel turned him on to Slick Rick's mona lisa.
Tal turned me onto that.
and now i am a slick rick enthusiast.
mona lisa
sitting in my car
memories
hey young world
star trek

too good.

these long rainy days at home. are. amazing.

every morning people get up, and then most of them go to work, school, etc.

i wake up. make some coffee. sit on the couch. write in my journal. learn more about the creator of the universe. write in my blog. find more piano students. bake cookies. have a shower. invite someone over to talk. play some music. write some music. teach piano. eat dinner. see TAL.

it's a nice day. a nice feeling.

before i was
waking up at 7. leaving by seven thirteen. getting to work by a series of public transportation vehicles. spending money i didn't have on coffee. taking two sips of my coffee, then starting work, then finding it hours later, cold in the back room. wish i hadn't bought the coffee. sorting clothes. sorting clothes. selling clothes. selling clothes. dressing mannequins, undressing them, dressing them again. taking a break. not knowing anyone. spending money i didn't have on my break. waiting for pay day. blah. leaving work. going home. doing the same thing again the next day.

now i actually have time for my art, my music, and my teaching. i'm doing a benefit show on saturday. i start teaching for the year next week. i'm taking another music history course. finishing my grade 10 piano (for the second time).

it feels like myself here. so close to the mountains and the trees. living in a rainforest. waking up and looking out of the skylight. surrounded by peace.

there are sometimes that i wake up and long for the security blanket that a job was for me. that longing for knowing exactly what was going to happen each day. but nevertheless this is the job for me. not knowing exactly whats going to happen throughout the day, and teaching for a few hours at the end of it.

god is so wonderful. it's really amazing how he's pouring into my hourglass all the things that i need to survive, providing opportunities for me. showing me where my spirit could be healed and transformed. these long rainy days at home. are. amazing.